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An erosion of principled responsibility

Whatever happened to Arizona’s support for policies to protect our environment? Where has our sense of environmental responsibility gone?

It wasn’t that long ago when our policymakers worked to find solutions to clean our air and eliminate the brown cloud that hung over our homes, schools and businesses. Bi-partisan solutions were offered to address the growing health crisis from the burning of fossil fuels, and to instead inject clean fuels and electrons into the system to benefit the economy, our air, our health, and our environment.

There was the leadership at the national level by US Senator John McCain, who was one of the Senate’s biggest climate champions. He introduced a bill with Sen. Joe Lieberman to create a “cap and trade” system on carbon emissions--before flip-flopping on the issue in a move to win over tea-party types in Arizona’s 2010 Republican US Senate primary.

Arizona leaders gave us the Environmental Portfolio Standard, a mechanism to help guide our transition to a cleaner future by unlocking the potential of technological innovation in renewable energy.

But our current crop of short-sighted leaders just don’t get it. Armed with talking points from the fossil fuel industry, these leaders push the manufactured storyline that a solution like rooftop solar is somehow going to be the downfall of our way of life unless we can stop it from picking our pockets.

This messaging and similar talking points from climate deniers has been polluting our airwaves for the past two years.

Take as an example the winter before last which brought us the spectacle of a US Senator holding up a snowball on the floor of the Senate as a prop while arguing that climate change must be a hoax, because see, here's a snowball. Or the 18 Arizona state senators that two years ago voted for a bill to nullify all rules, including clean air and water requirements, imposed by the US Environmental Protection Agency. Or the votes by Arizona Corporation Commission regulators to slow solar adoption by changing net metering laws and the SRP Board of Directors to implement demand charges on solar homeowners for the purported reason that solar users "weren't paying their fair share."

These antics and votes come at the same time the societal and climatic disruptions caused by the burning of fossil fuels are actually threatening all life as we know it.

You don’t have to look any further than our own backyard to see the effects in the bark beetle infestation in old-growth pine forests in northern Arizona, or the decreasing water flowing through our rivers, lakes, dams, canals and into our cities.

Record drought, wildfires and killer heatwaves clearly illustrate that the impact of climate change isn’t limited to the polar ice caps or the hurricanes that pound coastal regions. The impacts are being felt everywhere, and they constitute a very real threat.

The costs of these climatic events projected into the future are staggering, yet deniers argue that it is the proposed solutions that will be ruinous, leading to economic calamity. They argue that a clean energy revolution will cost billions in higher utility bills. Yet they ignore the billions spent on health-related costs of respiratory and heart illnesses stemming from the environmental damage resulting from our continued reliance on fossil fuels–even as solar energy is proving affordable as prices continue to decline. Today more Americans are employed in the solar industry than in the coal industry, and the industry is pumping nearly $20 billion a year into the US economy.

We’ve witnessed this reluctance to change course many times before–witness the auto industry’s arguments against catalytic converters and fuel efficiency standards, where their dire warnings of potential job losses and higher costs never materialized.

A clean energy future should embrace all forms of energy solutions, business models and ownership formulas–as long as the energy resources are clean, reliable and affordable. It ought not matter whether the clean electron comes from a homeowner’s rooftop, a utility community solar project, a large scale solar plant in the Southwest, or a wind farm in the Midwest.

The multi-faceted benefits from these solutions are clear--but the bottom line is, there is no Plan(et) B.

Jim ArwoodCommunications DirectorArizona Solar Center

Question: Will Climate Change Policy be a major campaign issue in the upcoming Presidential election?

About the author

Jim Arwood served six Arizona governors in various capacities managing federal energy programs, culminating in his appointment by then Governor Janet Napolitano, as Director of the State Energy Office in 2006. After nearly 25 years serving the state of Arizona, Mr. Arwood retired from government service in 2010 and today consults for a variety of energy related organizations. He also serves as Director of Communications for the Arizona Solar Center.

Comments
2

In 2009, my wife and I decided to do something about our energy. I took a course in solar PV installation and became a certified installer. We bought and installed 520 solar panels and installed them on some spare land we had with 36 of them providing all our needs for our own home with the rest selling back to SRP. Seemed like a good idea at the time, however the buyback price has gone down rather than up so that SRP currently pays about 3.5 cent per kwh - a ridiculously low price. Yes, we there was a number of incentives at the time that we took advantage of, however as an investment it is an extremely poor one. Haven't checked the current conditions for incentive to build a similar system, but probably even worse now. Anybody that says we are not paying our way is a liar. Quite the reverse, SRP is getting very cheap power near point of use with no maintenance worry..
Utilities need to be forced to pay a reasonable rate to buy clean power. Period. People will generate and store clean solar power with little or no extra cost to the end user, however as it is now the utilities will continue to hold us to ransom and keep is subservient to their monopolies.

In 2009, my wife and I decided to do something about our energy. I took a course in solar PV installation and became a certified installer. We bought and installed 520 solar panels and installed them on some spare land we had with 36 of them providing all our needs for our own home with the rest selling back to SRP. Seemed like a good idea at the time, however the buyback price has gone down rather than up so that SRP currently pays about 3.5 cent per kwh - a ridiculously low price. Yes, we there was a number of incentives at the time that we took advantage of, however as an investment it is an extremely poor one. Haven't checked the current conditions for incentive to build a similar system, but probably even worse now. Anybody that says we are not paying our way is a liar. Quite the reverse, SRP is getting very cheap power near point of use with no maintenance worry..
Utilities need to be forced to pay a reasonable rate to buy clean power. Period. People will generate and store clean solar power with little or no extra cost to the end user, however as it is now the utilities will continue to hold us to ransom and keep is subservient to their monopolies.

SRPs rate plan is no different than a factory using child labor to make their products. They are profitting hugely off the backs of residential solar producers who have no voice or power to defend themselves from exploitation. It is sick.

SRPs rate plan is no different than a factory using child labor to make their products. They are profitting hugely off the backs of residential solar producers who have no voice or power to defend themselves from exploitation. It is sick.